In January 2013, Mali, a country of 18 million habitants, considered as a democracy model, which displayed since ten years more than 7% economic growth, collapsed face a few hundred jihadists. An urgent intervention of the French army avoids taking Bamako, kidnapping either 3 or 4 tourists but over 6,000 of our compatriots, and the establishment of a caliphate similar to that which is established in Syria and Iraq. Is this episode simply a new form of eternal rezzou Tuareg ? Or is it revealing a far more worrying situation?
Geopolitical issues in the Sahel become really significant regionally and also for France. We face the risk of implosion of an area where currently live about 100 million, which will be 150 million in ten years. An implosion of the French-speaking region four times the population of Syria would not be without consequences for migration rates to our country.
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The only short-term option is to launch this ambitious rural development programs Share-based on land rehabilitation, massive investment in rural roads, small irrigation, electrification, agricultural intensification, supporting pastoralism, etc. To these actions we need to add programs to control fertility that is of the order of 7.5 children per woman in the Sahel to gradually bring it to Maghreb rates that are lower than 2.5.
A second priority would be to consolidate as soon as possible or even rebuild, the sovereign devices of Sahelian countries: army, police, community policing, justice, territorial administration, etc. Because only upgraded local sovereign appliances are abble to stabilize these countries. The appeal for that in foreign military forces can indeed lead to a deadlock where Western forces have already been in Afghanistan, where from “saviors”, were quickly perceived as occupiers.
This requires resources, we can hardly expect to find that in the budgets of our development assistance. Unfortunately, France has gradually transferred the most of its aid resources to European and international institutions. France must imperatively take back control of part of the significant resources it pays to international aid agencies.
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Source URL: https://diplomatie-humanitaire.org/en/in-front-of-the-expanding-of-daech-in-libya-and-the-sahel-risks-destabilizing-the-answer-can-only-be-military/
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